Finland’s forestry sector would suffer a severe blow should the Russian government decide to introduce trade sanctions on timber, an industry spokesman has said.
Jukka Halonen, head of Russian affairs at the Finnish Forest Industries federation, told Yle that a possible embargo on Finnish timber imports would freeze the domestic forestry sector, and he insisted it would also harm Russia’s own industry.
The sanctions were mooted on Friday in the Duma in retaliation for Finland’s refusal to lift an EU travel restriction allowing a prominent Russian politician to attend a political summit in Helsinki.
“Finnish forestry has been active in Russia and has helped advance the Russian forestry industry. It seems bizarre that forestry should be suddenly singled out for punishment as a result of this political situation,” Halonen said.
OSCE Helsinki boycott
Russia’s parliament on Friday issued a condemnation of Finland for refusing entry visas to its Speaker Sergei Naryshkin and five other Russian citizens, all of whom are on the EU sanctions list. As a result, Russia refused to send a single representative to a four-day meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), held in the the Finnish capital this weekend.
In Friday’s parliamentary session in Moscow, the head of Russia’s security council, Nikolai Patrushev, called on Russia to consider revising favourable trade conditions for Finland’s forestry industry, though admitted that the measures won’t necessarily come into force.
Halonen said that there has been no direct contact from anyone in Russia with the Finnish federation regarding the possible sanctions.
Mutually harmful
Last year Finland’s forestry industry sourced 13 percent of its raw materials from Russia, amounting to around 300 million euros, according to Halonen. He said that trade embargos would amount to a freeze on the industry within Finland.
”Some of the loss could be made up from within Finland and elsewhere in the Baltics, but yes it would be a severe blow to our operations,” Halonen admitted. “As is not unknown, Russia would also harm its own forestry sector by shutting down Finnish operations.”
The Finnish forestry body has sent a request to Finland’s authorities to try keep the country’s commerce and industry out of the spiralling row over visa refusals for the OSCE conference.
Meanwhile the union for Agriculture and Farming, the MTK, insisted that timber trade restrictions would only affect the country’s industry in the short term. Domestic forest supplies are sufficient to keep Finnish forestry plants active in the longer term, claimed the MTK’s Juha Hakkarainen.
However Hakkarainen warned that production of birch wood-fibre products would be hit, as they rely heavily on imports from Russia.
